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In 1995 Kenny Anderson, then lead singer/songwriter for the scottish bands skuobhie dubh orchestra and khartoum heroes, launched his own label fence with his own solo project king creosote. With a healthy cynicism of all things music industry related, kc set out to make home recorded music in as stress-free an environment as possible, and hunkered down in n.e. fife for the long haul.

With a few cdr titles released thru’ local shops, and with brothers een (pip dylan) and gordon (lone pigeon) forming the beginnings of a fence collective, by summer 2000 fence had taken over the running of a st.andrews cd shop, had an extensive website up and running, and were packing out the local pubs once a fortnight. collective member james yorkston made sure that the fence music came to the attention of labels like bad jazz and domino, and the legendary fence gatherings were soon on the move.

independent stores such as rough trade in london, avalanche in edinburgh, monorail in glasgow, and norman records in leeds were all pushing the fence collective cdr titles when in 2003 domino helped launch king creosote’s first album proper “kenny and beth’s musakal boatrides”, which made no. 5 in rough trade’s top 100 albums of that year. in the spring of 2005 kc put out a second album for domino, the self-produced “rocket d.i.y.”, and then went off to collaborate with the earlies from burnley, lancashire, supposedly to record an ep for names/679. it all gets a bit confusing from here. the resulting album “kc rules ok” released in 2005 caught everyone by surprise, but didn’t contain enough singles, and so certain tracks were re-recorded using the all-new kc band, and “kc rules ok” was re-released in summer 2006 with an invisible companion album “chorlton and the wh’earlies” (the original album working title, as it happens) which contained the original non-single recordings as well as some of the failed single edits and remixes, and all this sort of re-packaged with new sleeve notes, thus giving “kc rules ok” a further lifespan of 3 years? the most singley single recorded in january 2006, “you’ve no clue do you”, was considered too something or other, but on listening again it became the obvious lead single for the hastily recorded “bombshell” in 2007, as produced by jon hopkins.

things were much simpler when in 2008 kc recorded “flick the Vs” on the sly and handed it over to domino. one year on, and “flick the Vs” remains remarkably unaltered. in 2009 king creosote has recorded with the burns unit, reporter, jon hopkins and animal magic tricks.

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Jon Hopkins is a London-based electronic composer, producer and remixer. He makes powerfully emotive, instrumental music that consistently crosses genres, ranging from solo acoustic piano to explosive, bass-heavy electro. A long-term collaborator of Brian Eno, his career has remained unpredictable, taking in collaborations with Wayne MacGregor, King Creosote and David Holmes; remixes for such varied artists as Wild Beasts, Nosaj Thing, James Yorkston and Four Tet; and film scores for directors including Peter Jackson and Gareth Edwards. His hyper-energetic live show has been seen at some of the world’s most iconic venues, including Sydney Opera House with Brian Eno, Madison Square Garden opening for Coldplay, and innumerable clubs, festivals and concert halls the world over.

A childhood musical prodigy, he studied classical piano at the Royal College of Music from the age of 12. Exposure to the melodic side of electronica and rave via such artists as Acen, Seefeel and Plaid proved eye-opening, and aged 17 he decided to concentrate on exploring more contemporary sounds. He was hired to play keyboards and samplers for Imogen Heap, then after a year of touring, began to write solo music. His first two albums on Just Music, 2001’s Opalescent and 2004’s Contact Note, gained him critical recognition and a small but loyal following.

After an introduction from guitarist and friend Leo Abrahams, he started working with Brian Eno on his Another Day On Earth album. Continuing this break from solo work, he produced King Creosote’s Bombshell, starting a working relationship with the Fence Collective that continues to this day. He also co-wrote tracks with David Holmes for his Holy Pictures album, remixed for James Yorkston and released further Fence collaborations. In 2007 he was introduced to Coldplay by Eno, which led to an additional production credit on Viva La Vida, opening slots for the band on tour, and the inclusion of his track Light Through The Veins as both intro and outro for the album.

In 2008 he was commissioned by choreographer Wayne McGregor to compose the score for Entity, a contemporary dance production that premiered at Sadler’s Wells to widespread critical acclaim. This music formed the basis for his third solo album, and his first for Domino, Insides.

Insides had a far greater impact. He developed an intensely dynamic live show to bring the album to life, which resulted in club and festival shows all over Europe and America. In 2009, supporting slots with The xx, Royksopp and Four Tet helped the album gain further momentum, and it reached no.2 in the electronic charts on US iTunes. After finding his feet in the live arena he joined Eno, Abrahams, The Necks and Underworld’s Karl Hyde for the ‘Pure Scenius’ series of improvised concerts, at Sydney Opera House. At the same time he collaborated with Tunng on the EP Seven Gulps of Air, a commission from designer Christopher Kelly that was presented at London Fashion Week.

He worked with Eno again on the Lovely Bones soundtrack, a project which led to his first solo score – 2010’s Monsters. A haunting indie sci-fi road trip by first-time director Gareth Edwards, Hopkins’ electro-acoustic score is built around processed string performances by legendary arranger Davide Rossi. 2010 also saw him release remixes of tracks by Wild Beasts, Nosaj Thing, Imogen Heap and Four Tet, the latter returning the favour on Hopkins’ latest 12-inch, Vessel, which was backed by a Nathan Fake remix of Wire.

Hopkins, Abrahams and Eno teamed up most recently for Eno’s Warp Records debut, Small Craft On A Milk Sea, an album of fifteen dark and dreamlike instrumentals born out of a two-week period of improvisation. Released in November 2010, the album has already been hailed as one of Eno’s finest collaborations.

He is currently working on a new solo electronic album, to be released on Domino in 2011.

The Vallarelli Brothers formed their band Phone Home in April of 2010. The native New York instrumental pop-duo creates rhythmically driving, atmospheric soundscapes with Michael on keys and John on drums. Inspired by all genres of music, Phone Home's lyric-less music echoes feelings that we are not alone in this universe, hence the loving nod to E.T. with the band's name.

They released their debut, self-titled E.P in September 2010 on their Bandcamp site http://phonehome.bandcamp.com/ with a pay what you'd like option. Various blogs have made comparisons to krautrock, The Album Leaf and Brian Eno among others.